.

There was an ad for joining the army that played in the program before this film. On the one hand you can see why they would place this promo ahead of a war movie but actually that ad is running ahead of everything right now. If you been to an Everyman cinema in the UK recently you’ll have seen it. This may not have been the time though. It’s not the worse example of this kind of flawed programming that I’ve seen. That might be the corny Aaron Taylor-Johnson aftershave advert that ran right before The Fall Guy which actually includes a spoof Aaron Taylor-Johnson aftershave advert or it could have been the tone deaf inclusion of an ad for XBox’s Call of Duty: WWII before Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. This one is up there though. It doesn’t trivialise or undermine anything like those did but it is of note that after seeing a two minute clip telling me why I might want to join the Armed Forces, I then watched a ninety five minute film showing me exactly why I would not.

Warfare is not anti-war and it is not anti-army but it celebrates the latter without coming close to glorifying the former. After a wordless but brilliantly communicative opening scene, which will remind music fans of early noughties house techno and movie fans of The Substance, it plays out in almost real time as a squad of Navy SEALs engage in a surveillance mission in insurgent territory during the Iraq War. Needless to say after a tense but relatively uneventful first half hour it then gets grim. The film has been described as the most accurate depiction of war ever committed to the screen, not because it is harrowing and brutal (although in places it is) but because it is just so unflinchingly honest. 

That verisimilitude is the point. The narrative is entirely built around the recollections of the men who went through the events that are depicted here and there is nothing that feels scripted in a traditional sense. One of those soldiers, Ray Mendoza, is the co-director working here alongside Alex Garland.

Having seen Garland’s last film, Civil War, my assumption would have been that Mendoza, looking for someone to help him capture the realities of combat, approached Garland because of the incredible way he had done this in that movie. Actually though the timings don’t quite work on this because Civil War only came out twelve months ago and things take longer to set up, shoot and releases than that. As it is Mendoza was actually the military supervisor on Civil War so the reason that film got all of that so right was actually because of him. Clearly at some stage during the production of that movie, they decided to collaborate on this one and Garland has stated that his role is secondary, just providing the practical filmmaking guidance. Collectively though, they have come up with a superb piece of work. 

Warfare is a movie to be appreciated and admired more than it is one to be enjoyed. It feels visceral and intimate and there is no question that it is gripping and compelling. There are some excellent shots and impressive effects sequences, courtesy of Garland, but these are always in service of the story. The cast is a mix of varying degrees of familiar faces including Will Poulter and Joseph Quinn as well a lots of other guys you’ll know from that thing you saw. All of them are excellent though with none of them really standing out above anyone else. 

Based heavily on actual experiences and real voices, there are perhaps a few players that feel underserved in a way they might not have been had they also been interviewed in preparation for the film. It is careful not to demonise the enemy though, as so many other war movies have, and that is also to its credit. Particularly when you consider that they literally tried to kill the director and his friends. You’d forgive him for not taking the balanced approach he has.

While the film has done nothing to make me consider a career in the Armed Forces then, it has increased my appreciation for those that do. Civil War generated great power by showing conflict in a place where we complacently think it could never happen and like that movie Warfare finds a way of bringing war into a home environment too.

Mendoza has made this movie as a tribute to those he fought with a decade and a half ago, one man in particular for who this apparently will fill in the gaps in his broken memory, but it stands as a call to all of us to remember what does on behind the headlines we see. Those from back then and the ones from now.